By Giorgos Palaitsakis
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Two prominent measures eagerly promoted by the Greek government for inclusion in a draft bill loaded with incentives to expand the use of electronic transactions have reportedly fizzled out due to objections by institutional creditors.
The first nixed measure, which had even been unveiled by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras at an annual state-of-the economy address in Thessaloniki last September, would have allowed businesses to open a sole bank account that enjoys total or partial protection from creditors, such as banks’ themselves, the tax bureau, social security funds and even private sector creditors.
On its part, the leftist Greek government warned that without the protected account framework, businesses with major arrears would try to engage in as much «underground» or «grey» economic activities as possible.
The other, albeit lesser, proposal had been to connect cash registers in the country’s stores and shops with a mainframe managed by the general secretariat for public revenue.
